


Reaper Gem

by ccauchemar



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Bad Pearl AU, Experimental, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-29
Updated: 2015-06-29
Packaged: 2018-04-06 18:20:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,835
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4232001
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ccauchemar/pseuds/ccauchemar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Come with me, Amethyst?" Pearl asked, one hand gripping the bat like she would a sword: like it was an extension of her arm. Her shoes crunched on glass.</p><p>Amethyst stared. Here was a fallen angel, offering her companionship if nothing else in this godforsaken town. What else was there to lose?</p><p>"You got it, P," Amethyst said, all smooth and shaded, offering a bright shard of her soul to this valkyrie with alabaster skin and a heart that burned like liquid nitrogen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reaper Gem

**Author's Note:**

> The Bad Pearl AU is based on the assumption that fifty two iterations of Steven disappeared after the time shenanigans present in _Steven and the Stevens_. I wanted to do something with Bad Pearl and this happened. Contains mild sexual references. Title based on _Reaper Man_ by Mother Mother.

Rain fell hard on the empty streets of Ocean Town. The abandoned place was little more than a husk of structure and overgrown city blocks, barely a ghost of its former glory as a beacon of commerce that outshone Beach City itself. Even so, it was teeming with activity. Things crawled over dilapidated houses, rotting beams, and piles of bricks with broken mortar. Things slithered under brambles and weeds, mats of leafy buildup that smelled of decay and damp.

Down in the suburban streets of boulevards and shops, dirty white boots splashed through puddles of water. A lone figure sprinted down the road. Her hair was plastered to her face and soaked clothes. Her panting breaths left in puffs of condensation, heat quickly lost to unforgiving air. Skidding a corner into another street the small figure dashed into a broken arcade, leaving muddy, wet footprints behind. She couldn’t afford to stop.

She tore into a musty clothes store and vaulted over the fake marble counter, crashing into a basket of crummy plastic coat hangers and cardboard shoe boxes that loudly proclaimed they had “Sizes For Every Woman!” She winced at the noise and kept as still as she could, with an arm and a leg tangled up in the damn things.

Water trickled out of her hair and dripped off her clothes as she waited. The cold chilled her as she waited. And waited.

And waited.

The sun, barely at its zenith behind the clouds during her run, had begun to sink below the horizon before the small person pushed to her aching feet. Tired, cramped, and sore, she slowly began to stretch, joints popping loudly from disuse. A heavy coat, boots, and pants were unceremoniously dumped in a pile with the coat hangers.

She ambled through the store with one eye out the main entrance, scrutinising the shelves for something new, fashionable, and in one piece with the other. Half the clothes were moth eaten. Her own reflection caught in a dusty mirror, and she stared, and sighed.

Framed by limp strands of thick white hair, complimented by unkempt eyebrows and dark bags, and glimmering with a fire that refused to go out, Amethyst’s tired eyes stared back at her. Her heart, the gem set in her sternum, refracted the dull, fading light so well it shone with a vibrancy seemingly all of its own. It was in a spectacular condition despite such a despondent environment.

Amethyst furrowed her brows and huffed. She grabbed the nearest shirt, pink with some trendy logo, and used it to squeeze and wring the rainwater out of her hair. It went unceremoniously onto the junk pile behind the counter. Her leotard and singlet were phased out and in of existence, and the water fell to the linoleum floor.

“It wouldn’t have killed them to have left a radio lying around,” she complained to the empty room. It was always so silent.

Ocean Town was a hell hole. This weather, she admitted, was new. Ever since the season had begun to turn, the mood had gone from bad to worse. Clearing out an entire town of crawling gem monsters was an arduous, gargantuan task. Garnet had put herself to the task of keeping Beach City sane and safe.

Steven, as the whole town was distraught to discover, had simply disappeared off the face of the planet on the day of the annual Beachapalooza over a year ago.

Amethyst trumped to the back room, the one piled high with boxes and a spectacular pile of clothes that served as her bed. Trinkets and goods decorated storage shelves haphazardly. She flopped into the nest of clothes and curled on her side.

Garnet had seen why Steven disappeared. She’d kept it a secret, a burden for her alone. She watched Beach City and sent both Amethyst and Pearl on missions together or, more frequently as time went by, separately.

A little more than half a year ago, Pearl too disappeared off the map, here in Ocean Town no less. Amethyst spent so much time looking for Pearl, she’d made this hidey hole for the more extended outings. Nowadays, she just plain lived here, looking for Pearl in between hunting gem monsters. Knowing there was a hunter in their midst, the smarter ones had turned from prey to predator, though their efforts were met with failure. Except for one. It was impossible to ascertain if this predator was a single monster or numerous; it had remarkable ability to follow her and vanish as quickly as it appeared, leaving only the smallest of clues as to where it had been.

Amethyst had collected a whole pile of the tiny, shiny, milky scales, and they were scattered on the shelf near her feet. They flittered on the tiny eddies of wind that blew through the streets, and Amethyst would have mistaken them for fish scales if not for their diamond shape and distance from the beach.

If Pearl were here, she could get rid of the monster trailing her easily. They had, she admitted to herself, worked so well together when they did it in Steven’s memory. If Pearl were here, she could at least have some company. It wasn’t that bad, though, she thought blankly, she’d had to be alone before.

Thoughts of the… _home_ she’d lost drifted through her mind as she curled up on the clothes pile and slipped into the stasis she could call sleep.

 

The pre-dawn light was met with the crack of a whip, and the dying screech of a four armed beast as it retreated to its rust red gem to reform. A quiet _voip_ sounded as the gem was caught in a purple bubble and sent miles away to the heart of the temple on Beach City’s outskirts.

Amethyst was already on the prowl. She had chosen to avoid the city block of yesterday, instead lashing left and right through oceanside flood zone streets, assaulting a pack of long limbed behemoths who tried to crush her on sight. She was far more agile than any of them, skipping and rolling from beast to beast, slowly beating down gem after corrupted gem and forcing them down and out.

The cracked tarmac, slick with algae, put a sick thrill in Amethyst as she had to accommodate for each slip as slide as she moved. Her flicks and cracks were executed superbly as she slid like an ice skater across the muck. She took out eyes, limbs, fingers, even severed clean through a leg and left a stump that did not bleed. There must have been at least ten of them, towering higher than houses, thundering fists splitting the street, bursting sludge filled water pipes and unearthing rusted electrical cables caked with flaky, powdery oxides. Amethyst lashed out, wrapping her whip around a thick umber wrist, and the beast roared, yanking its arm back.

Amethyst came with it. She clung to her whip as she was thrown through the air at breakneck speed, and the last thing she saw was a brick wall. Her vibrant purple core clattered to the street in a puff of dust.

Amethyst’s shadow leapt upon the rust monsters from above with a piercing shriek, striking with breakneck speed. More gems fell as the new beast, thrice as tall as Amethyst, tore through flesh and bone like paper. The great executioner wiped out all traces of life in the street. It stabbed deep into the chest of the final monster, twisting and savaging its body, and it fell with a groan.

Onshore wind blew slowly through the street, carrying tiny milky scales with it, ruffling the monster’s feathery mane. It sat, unimpressed. It finally slunk around and crushed each offending gem under its claws.

Except the purple stone, under a wall. The monster stared at it and blinked slowly. The gem was picked up delicately with its skull-like maw. It carried the gem away, graceful as a velociraptor, plumage almost catching the light as it fled before the sun that crept lethargically above the horizon.

 

 

 

Warmth.

Warmth like Amethyst hadn’t known in weeks, enveloping her almost completely. She blinked blearily. Nothing was in focus, like she’d pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes for too long.

Wherever she was in general, it was obvious she was in a cave. The mouth was far away, and she could hear gulls crying and the ocean crashing on rocks below. The light was dim. She was curled in a foetal position, protecting the gem at her heart. She’d reformed. Amethyst grumbled to herself. It was bound to happen sooner rather than later.

Hmm. Her outfit wasn’t immediately different, she noticed. Her heir flopped in front of her eyes, and she could see a paler patch that likely heralded a colour change around the top of her skull. Amethyst was largely unimpressed, if she had to be honest with herself.

A slow purring growl sounded above her head, and Amethyst twisted around, a slow acidic feeling spreading in her chest as her heart skipped a beat or two.

Whatever was holding Amethyst was curled surely around her. Her widening eyes looked up the long limbs, spindly joints, at the – the eyes of the predator that had stalked her. Boring into her sockets. Amethyst couldn’t see colours in this light, but the jaw, so long and beak-like on a figure that was barely humanoid, the long limbs that wrapped around her, made her feel…

 _Thoroughly_ endangered.

"Get away from me!” Amethyst howled as she scrambled away from the beast and drew her whip. The beast jackknifed up off the ground and landed on all four limbs, hackles rising. Scales fell to the ground. Sleek feathers stood high off its body, more archaeopteryx than lizard and more bird than human, and a fanned display of feathers quivered behind it. It crept forwards on four feet with claws like the blades of the grim reaper.

“I told you to stay away!” Amethyst shouted, flicking a warning as it continued to advance and she stepped back. She looked over her shoulder. There were three metres between her and the cave mouth.

The beast advanced. Two metres.

Amethyst couldn’t go any further. The sea crashed below, spray barely clearing the cave mouth.

Light shimmered off the beast’s face. The cyan tinted, dark milky scales on its underbelly. The glossy, muted pink-orange feathers covering its body, the great shiny pearl in its forehead, and the predatory eyes with no recognition Amethyst could make out.

Broken gems would always slip into animalism eventually,  _fuck_ knows how long—

“ _Pearl_?” Amethyst spat.

The monster vaulted at Amethyst, grabbing her fast with its hands, talons, and clean bowling Amethyst back into the cave. The purple gem slid on the floor and collided with a pile of brittle bones and sand that clacked ominously on one another. It was better than coat hangers, she mused suddenly as the beast stalked closer with all the grace Pearl should have exhibited. This wasn’t Pearl. Pearl would have recognised her. Pearl would have gone to Rose’s fountain and healed herself. And yet, hope welled within her heedless of her need for seriousness. Amethyst snarled. The monstrous Pearl stilled. Its chest, where earthen creatures would have breathed, was so still it looked dead. Gems didn’t need to breathe.

"Why didn’t you tell me?” Amethyst lamented. “You couldn’t have told me when this started? Couldn’t have gone to Garnet? Couldn’t have done _anything_?” Amethyst shouted at the thing in front of her. She closed into herself and clenched her fists, eyes alight with fury. “ _Are you even our Pearl_?” She exploded. 

The corrupted gem reacted to the aggression. Cool demeanour, gone. It pivoted fluidly in the cramped cave and kicked Amethyst square in the chest. The short gem slid clean through the pile of bones and hit the rock wall, but charged forward, hollering, two whips blazing.

The Pearl jabbed and swiped with claws the colour of the sky, or helical spears, each blow parried by the raging wildcat. Hellbent on putting this mockery (to Pearl’s memory, to her own feelings) down, Amethyst cut deep with every lash, and drove it back into the cave wall.

Teal flesh was visible in the few lacerations Amethyst landed, on its face, its arms, its feathered breast. It did not recognise her. It _did_ recognise when a fight would be slim. It counted on being able to outspeed and outmanoeuvre its shorter, smaller prey. It did not count on two whips wrapping around its muzzle and neck and pulling fast.

Its neck was instantly broken. There was a quiet moment where its face was painted with a skulled, avian caricature of surprise. Then it exploded in a puff of dust, and the gem fell to the cave floor.

Amethyst’s grip was so tight on her whips her knuckles were pale mauve. She managed to drop them, and scooped up the gem with shuddering hands. Her knees scraped on the stone floor. Her breaths came hard and fast. 

This was a Pearl, definitely. Under the shock and adrenaline Amethyst found two conclusions: Either this was a survivor of the war she never saw, rotting away off the limits of Ocean Town - assuming that’s where she was currently - somehow safe after all this time; or it was their Pearl, corrupted hideously beyond recognition. A mockery of the Gem who danced like water and needed order above all else. Amethyst didn’t know which was worse. She curled her stubby fingers around the gem, and turned it over. And over. And over again, searching for cracks, hairline fractures, invisible breaks, something, anything.

Whatever had happened, it wasn’t because of damage. There was no point taking it to Rose’s fountain. All she could really do was wait for the Pearl to reform.

Amethyst pushed herself to her feet.

 

She should have gone to Garnet.

She berated herself half-heartedly over and over as more rain fell outside. Garnet would help. Garnet would tell her what to do. Garnet would take no chances, bubble the gem away, and bury the pain under another layer of iron.

Amethyst sighed.

The cliffside cavern was roughly two miles from Ocean Town, just up the coast, and the ruined city was clearly visible when she exited. It had taken her an hour to get back through thick vegetation, even with her whip. She holed up in an actual house quite a distance away from her “home”, putting the Pearl in the middle of a dusty master bed and jamming a chair under the bedroom door from the outside. Who even _designed_ a bedroom with a door that opened _outwards_?

Amethyst just sat in front of the television that had no power, spooning milk powder into her mouth. She’d found various tea bags in tin containers, instant coffee, and grossly stale chips which she had eaten anyway. Not that she needed it, of course, but the act of eating still made her feel good. If the kettle worked she might go to the trouble of trying to make tea, but that reminded her of Pearl.

She put the lid on the milk powder and sat there.

Sometimes it seemed like all the fun in her had disappeared with Steven. It was like losing Rose all over again, except worse. She’d talked to Greg increasingly. Obsessively. Garnet had, too. Pearl busied herself with missions. Garnet busied herself with Pearl, or Amethyst. Filling the gaping void that desperately wanted cheesy, impromptu ukulele songs, bad puns, and unconditional compassion. Filling it with missions or stooping to strange human drugs that did nothing to their psyches like the humans all claimed they would. Pearl begrudgingly ate cigarettes before she realised you were supposed to set them on fire. She tried that for a little while, but the tar smoke did nothing except make everything near her stink, so she stopped. Garnet played Meat Beat Mania for thirty four days straight. The whole town was concerned. The only thing that finally stopped her was the console itself clocking over to zero seven hundred and five times. The damn thing melted internally, unable to keep up with demand.

Weeks ticked by in the blink of an eye. Time was immaterial when you were a few millennia old and still considered young.

The day was young and overcast when a great burst of white light finally lit up the bedroom.

 

Pearl was back - a shudder ran down her spine, and her skin pricked with feathers. She was a disgrace. Scales crept like mould and lichen under her top. Her well-kept, teal tinted nails were manifesting as claws. It would all be done in a moment, she was already subduing her conscious thought –

A white boot pounded the door open, and the alabaster gem squawked in fright, transformation stalling.

Amethyst stared at her, whip drawn.

A long pause, then, in the most tentative of voices:

“Amethyst?”

The purple gem felt relief. Confusion. Panic, at the spreading feathers. Rage.

“What is _wrong_ with you, P!” Amethyst shouted, clawing at her hair, eyes blown wide. “I thought you died!”

“Amethyst, you shouldn’t worry about me,” Pearl said, surprisingly meek. Slick feathers were creeping out of her skin. Her tone was jarring. She laced her fingers together.

“What’s happening to you?” Amethyst pushed, advancing to the bed like Pearl was the moon and she was a moth after months spent trying to travel in the dark.

“Don’t look at me,” Pearl whined as she scrambled back on the bed, propelled as if by the same pole on a magnet, claws nicking holes in the covers. “Don’t look at me, I’m a disgrace, I’m a DISGRACE!”

She toppled off the bed. The feathers erupted long and slick and quivering from her skin and her words turned into a piercing shriek. Her visage shimmered and morphed into a bleached beak framed with fans of beautiful coral feathers. Amethyst covered her ears with her hands.

“Pearl! Pull it together!” Amethyst wailed.

The Pearl-monster howled, thrashing against the walls and bed and floor, and palest blue scales shed like detritus and debris.

Amethyst shoved her beating heart away inside her and attacked.

 

The next three weeks were somber. The Pearl was back on the bed, and Amethyst was sitting sentinel.

God, nothing was so relieving and jarring as Pearl recognising her. It ruled out the other option - terrifying on its own - but left with an equally pressing issue. Pearl was corrupted. Defective, yes. Everyone and their mother knew that about Pearl. But the _likelihood_ of actual corruption, Amethyst had not considered.

The moment the slender Gem regenerated, Amethyst had busted down the door. Now she knew what was coming, she would take no chances. A seat cross legged directly next to the pale stone, whip drawn, eyes on the prize. Her clothes were clammy and the room smelled like mould. 

It was a test to her patience, but the end was inevitable.

The second time Pearl regenerated, Amethyst grabbed her shoulders even while the light was still fading and the raw energy blistered her skin.

Pearl’s eyes snapped from emotionless to calm to sharp to deadly to dead. They bored into Amethyst’s, and widened with surprise. 

Amethyst had no time to drink in her face, or her arms lax at her sides, or her legs folded under her. “Pearl! What’s going on!” She shouted. Not the most tactful approach.

“There’s nothing wrong with me, Amethyst,” Pearl deadpanned. Strangely quiet. Tense like something inside her was coiled to burst. Something avian and unnatural, deadly and beautiful, harsh and crass all in one.

Amethyst broke eye contact and patted all over Pearl’s arms for signs of feathers. When she found none, she looked at Pearl like she was nuts. “Oh, yeah, totally! So what was all the stuff about–” she made a terrible impression of Pearl “– _Don’t look at me, I’m a disgrace_!”

Pearl closed her eyes, and the monster simmered under her skin. “Amethyst, I don’t think you quite know the unfortunate _side effects_ that come with my… defectiveness.”

“Yeah, miss high and mighty, I know you’re _supposed_ to be a perfect knight and handmaiden or something,” Amethyst griped. She was treated like a child though she was just as aged and broken. Battered and belittled and downtrodden.

Pearl’s face twisted into something dark. Her eyelids drooped, covering perfect pale irises with a shadow black as tar. “Look at me, Amethyst,” she lilted, leaning back out of Amethyst’s paws and spreading her arms. Amethyst looked.

Pearl was wearing the same blue sleeveless top as Amethyst remembered, but the star was gone. Instead, a stripe of yellow ran from her left collarbone, across her chest, to just beneath her ribcage, imitating a great slash clean through her torso. Her leggings covered her knees. She had pearlescent braces around her ankles, left forearm, and neck. The blue sash around her waist was still there, plus one more on her upper left arm. All markings indicated sites of injury, as regeneration did.

“Jeez,” Amethyst forced herself to joke around her horror, “You’re even worse than me.”

Pearl made a noncommittal noise and quirked her lips. “Do you have any idea how hard it was to let go?” she continued. “I spent so long being right, Amethyst. This change… Understanding this part of me is so very satisfying,” she growled, actually growled, and to Amethyst’s revulsion there was a sick twist of heat between her legs, and again when Pearl languidly rolled her shoulders and curled her fingers into fists and her face split with a steak-knife grin like she was revelling in her own mutation.

Amethyst was horrified and intrigued by this new Pearl. This was so alien. The ethereal, analytical air the warrior gem held had been replaced with this… this mocking copy, like the fucked up humans exhibited in grungy films that Amethyst rented (stole) to pass bland weekends.

More like the cloying darkness clamouring to take full rein whenever Garnet wasn’t around to remind them of their light.

“Did you actually shut up for once?” Pearl stabbed. Her gaze roved over Amethyst’s face, crawling beneath her purple skin.

Amethyst started out of her reverie, glaring at the taller gem. “Why didn’t you come to Garnet?” She blurted. No tact. Like she had any regardless. Just parroted the same thing she said earlier. A terrible joke, she was; a disgrace, a shattered remnant of the terrible things gemkind had done. She suddenly smelled the room, felt the old bed under her, and was hit by an inexplicable wave of shame.

“I can’t say I know…” Pearl said suddenly, just slightly curling inward like her true self had shone a ray of light into the darkened room of her demeanour. “It’s either my body or my mind. I’d prefer if you didn’t pry,” she snapped, back to the deadpan near-monotone that governed the dark aura around her.

Amethyst’s face cycled through indignation and mistrust and settled on annoyance. “You’ve changed, P, and I don’t mean in a good way. It’s like, you used to make a fuss all the time, but at least you meant well!” She jabbed, waving her hands.

Pearl had the indignity to yawn and raised her fingertips to cover her teeth. “Well, Amethyst, you’re just going to have to get used to this new me. I’m afraid there’s nothing you can do about it.” She stood up on the bed, perfectly balanced, and hopped past the purple gem.

Amethyst spun round to follow her. “Wait, P, where are you going?!” She called. She needed to keep Pearl in sight.

Pearl stilled in the doorway. Tension settled over her form, and she breathed deeply of the stale air like she wanted to suck the life from the world. Amethyst noticed that the yellow stripe on her top continued around her back like a mayoral sash.

“I’m going hunting, Amethyst,” she said very quietly. She turned just enough to stare at her. “Would you care to join me?”

Oh, Amethyst had a terrible weakness for that deadly wicked grin.

 

The forest was quiet. Still, as if bated breath hung suspended in its viridian lungs. If you knew where to look, wildlife navigated over the rain-spattered leaf litter on the ground with nary a sound. Deer lowered their guard near creeks at the crux of valleys, lips barely touching the water as they drank.

Pale turquoise dancing flats stepped from root to rock to root, never touching the ground. Behind them short, dirty white boots trumped through the leaves, alerting everything in a thirty metre radius of the owners’ presence.

The wraith in front skipped neatly over a fallen log decorated with neon fungi. The little beast behind made especially sure to kick off all seven mushrooms and gouge a hole in the rotting log with a strong kick.

Pearl glared over her shoulder at Amethyst. “Be quiet,” she spat.

Amethyst wasn’t particularly inclined to obey orders from Pearl, especially in this jarring situation. “Do I have to?” she asked.

Pearl sighed loudly, trying to paint as much of her irritation into one sound as she could. “Acting belligerent won’t get you any favours,” she snarked, “just in case you thought you could get away with it.”

Amethyst nearly slipped on some moss, and begrudgingly decided that sticking to the roots like Pearl was a safer route. “You don’t have to be so _excessively_ evil,” she mocked under her breath.

Pearl made no sign of having heard. Her senses were focussed on the environment around them. Listening for soft animal sounds over the water. Smelling for deer musk. Watching for the tiniest of flickering twitches through the trees. She leapt clean over the creek, noiselessly alighting on the far bank. She peered upstream as Amethyst crashed through the water behind her.

Pearl narrowed her eyes at Amethyst. “Amethyst, I asked you to keep quiet,” she said, irritated at her companion’s continued antics.

Amethyst pulled a face, unwilling to cater to Pearl’s needs more than she had to. Not like she wanted to come along anyway. What was the point of this “hunting” trip? As Pearl herself used to say without fail whenever offered food by a small human with enthusiastic chubby hands and a dazzling grin, Gems didn’t need to eat.

Pearl zoned in on the crack of a twig off in the distance. She ghosted closer immediately without a word of warning.

“Hey, Pearl- Pearl!” Amethyst hissed fruitlessly. Pearl charged silently ahead, homing in on a… a deer.

Unbidden, Amethyst thought of the past. A time when she’d followed Pearl into a different forest. There, beside a still pool fringed by verdant greenery and blooming flowers, Pearl had encouraged Amethyst to sit with her and appreciate the world about them. It would be good for them both to learn how, Pearl told her in word for word recital of Rose Quartz, there was much beauty in this world and, having fought for it, they should be allowed to truly appreciate it.

Amethyst had eventually settled down next to Pearl. The young alabaster gem was by then cross legged by the water, spine ramrod straight, hands loosely in her lap, breathing slow and deep. Amethyst splayed her legs, propped herself up with her hands, and wiggled her feet. Breezes blew, birds flew by.

A deer had approached the two still gems. Amethyst did not notice until it was next to Pearl, right next to her, and she gasped. Pearl blinked, followed Amethyst’s startled gaze, and made eye contact with the deer.

The peaceable animal stared at them.

Pearl, transfixed, slowly, tentatively, gently raised her hand to touch the animal’s cheek. It shook its head, skittered, and bounded away.

“Aw Pearl, you scared it off!” Amethyst cried, all that time ago.

In the present, the deer didn’t hear Pearl coming. Amethyst snapped back fully into the moment as Pearl’s gem glowed and she grasped a handle and pulled.

The deer looked up, startled by the pastel blur speeding towards it, and made to escape. Pearl swung hard, fast, and loose with one arm. Amethyst made a strangled cry as the deer shrieked. Its front legs were broken by the brutal blow. Pearl struck down on the deer’s muzzle with the blunt edge of her spear, and the poor animal screamed.

Amethyst screamed at Pearl, unable to look away as the tall gem mauled the animal, bashing with the spear and one fist over and over and stabbing into its heart so it howled and Amethyst shouted and pleaded and cried as the animal cried and she grabbed Pearl’s arm. She was shaken off like a fly, and Pearl stabbed deep, so deep, and the deer fell, whimpers fading to silence.

Pearl breathed deep and hard, ragged inhales countered by soft exhales. Blood was splattered on her face and her knuckles were blue and red-teal-bloody and the expression on her face made Amethyst think she’d seen God.

Pearl swallowed thickly, appearing to ignore Amethyst entirely in favour of admiring the slick, bright red on her arms and the animal’s fur. “I needed that,” she breathed, voice, too, thick with bloodlust.

Amethyst couldn’t see very well at all. She rubbed her eyes and felt wetness. The tears kept coming as she spun the deranged Gem around to face her.

“ _What is wrong with you?!”_ Amethyst screeched, shaking her by the shoulders.

Pearl’s tongue darted out and swiped over her lips, catching blood.

Amethyst covered up a disparate shiver with another shake to the silent Pearl. “What’s _wrong_ with you, P?” She repeated, softer, choking on sounds she did not want to identify as sobs.

Pearl gently lifted Amethyst’s paws off her shoulders. Amethyst flinched at the sticky blood that rubbed onto her hands. “I already told you,” Pearl drawled.

More tears welled in Amethyst’s eyes. She hated tears. She wanted to rip out her damn tear ducts. _Fuck_ this body. She bristled, and snarled. “What would _Rose_ say?” she muttered between gritted teeth.

She was aware of an impact, and the air rushed out of her. She toppled to the ground hard and her head collided with the hard earth. She saw flashes of black and white. Pearl’s hand was tight about her neck; her heart hammered.

“Rose is dead,” Pearl growled, pressing heavy on Amethyst so her breaths were forced shallower. “And Steven is as _good_ as dead. There is nothing here for me on this miserable planet!”

 _What about Garnet?!_ Amethyst wanted to shout, but what should have been a heated, spitting jab came as only a weak wheeze.

Amethyst rammed her knee into Pearl’s side. The tall gem gasped, and Amethyst kicked her off, but Pearl’s physical weight was replaced by that of what she’d just said.

“What about me and Garnet?” Amethyst growled.

“Of course I care,” Pearl said blankly, licking sticky blood off her fingers. Amethyst found herself watching the careless action. “I didn’t kill you, did I?”

Amethyst glared at her accusingly. "I'm going back to Ocean Town. If you become _normal_ again, I'll be waiting for you," she muttered, leaving Pearl with the silence and the deer blood draining into the creek.

Amethyst dreamt of Pearl that night. Dreamt of her fingers covered in purple blood, held up to her face. Her eyes boring into Amethyst's own. Her tongue darting out to lick the blood off her fingers, and a serene smile creeping across her face.

Amethyst woke up and retched.

 

More whipcracks. Furious things, decimating the gem monsters in Amethyst's way. Five Earth days later, she was down the street from the temporary safe house, staving them off from the basements and foundations of the surrounds.

From the front veranda, Pearl lounged, watching Amethyst fight. Amethyst had no idea she was there, of course. Pearl had just come to observe. Pearl followed Amethyst with her eyes; every agile dodge, every precise crack of the whip, each step and movement. She fought like a wildcat, versatile, using the environment and her enemies to her advantage, flowing in her own agitated way from movement to movement where Pearl would have danced and spun. Pearl was struck with the bizarre notion that her new shirt was uncomfortable. 

The waifish gem had raided human clothes stores up and down the city after Amethyst left her alone. She liked the... appeal. Unknowingly, she had made her "purchases" from the men’s section of the clothes store.

Pulled over her usual outfit was a pair of loose denim jeans with the cuffs rolled up, the ones that nobody buys and look about a six out of ten. She wore a plain blue tee shirt, extra small men's, and even then it hung off her tiny frame. It was all in good fun, she thought. Why couldn't she have a little _fun_ every once in a while?

Closer and closer came Amethyst, having defeated her adversaries. Her whip shimmered out of existence.

"Oh, great. You look like a guy, P."

Pearl noted the way Amethyst kept glancing at her outfit. "Do you like it? You seem interested."

"It's okay, I guess. You just look like a human guy." She scuffed the veranda with her boot and stared at the ground, curiously, not making eye contact.

Pearl raised her hands in a shrugging gesture. "I thought you might like it if I came to hunt gem monsters with you instead of the wildlife."

Amethyst looked up quickly, but brushed her hair out of her eyes and glanced away. She stared at the other houses down the street, and glanced at Pearl again.

Pearl had no idea how different she looked, Amethyst thought. Her hair had taken on the slightest feathery texture, and it looked fluffy, wilder. There were rings under her eyes. Just lounging in a plastic chair - a very un-Pearl-like thing to do - she looked like a sunning lizard, or a resting predator. She always had a focussed stare now, and though her eyes were half lidded Amethyst swore Pearl could see right through her.

She looked dangerous, but in a different way she did in the days of the Crystal Gems.

"Yeah," Amethyst admitted. "Some company would be nice. I'm going to the beach. Do you... wanna come?" She said, trying for _casual but reserved_ , missing by a mile, and landing somewhere near _awkwardly trying to appease a bear_.

Pearl looked the most pleased Amethyst had seen her recently. "I'd like that, Amethyst. Shall we go?"

Amethyst led her off the front porch.

The beach was a good half hour’s worth of walking away. The sky threatened rain, and Amethyst jokingly suggested they take an umbrella. Never one for sarcasm, Pearl declined, completely seriously.

The beach was peppered with burrows. In each one, the gems found, there were clusters of melon-sized white jade spheres. An honest infestation of gem monsters. Amethyst immediately got to work scooping them out and bubbling them off. Pearl, too, bubbled them away; it surprised Amethyst, for wouldn't Garnet recognise her pale yellow bubbles?

Unknown to them, a great shape knifed through the water towards the shore, alerted that its offspring were going missing, and very, very mad.

"Hey Pearl," Amethyst called, "Where are you sending those?"

"The heart of the temple. The ceiling is practically a froth of bubbles, Amethyst, Garnet isn't going to notice a few extra yellow ones."

Amethyst was surprised. "Aren't you worried about getting caught?"

"Aren't you?"

The great white turtle breached the surf with a roar, spraying water onto the shore.

Both Gems stared at the great monster hauling itself closer across the sand, with its snapping jaw and hollow glowing eyes and spined shell and fins that worked like legs to drag it up the beach towards them.

“Leave the eggs!” Amethyst shouted, drawing her whip and preparing to parry and lash.

Pearl complied. She leapt away from the charging gem monster and flanked it, jabbing her spear into its fin and using the momentum to swing herself up its back.

Amethyst curled up and shot forwards in a spin dash, aiming for its eyes. She collided with the turtle’s face with such force it abruptly jolted upwards, and Pearl narrowly avoided getting her eye gouged out by the stalagmite spines on the shell.

The turtle snapped and rammed at Amethyst, making it exceedingly difficult for Pearl to clamber up to the back of its head. The first time she drew a spear and raised it the turtle turned suddenly and she slipped down the shell, spear lodging behind two spines so she dangled from one hand over the lip of the shell. Her feet swung above the ground.

Amethyst started when the turtle craned its head. It bashed the side of its skull against Pearl, and Amethyst lashed out for one of the spines on its back.

"Pearl, give me a spear!" Amethyst called.

Pearl was busy punching the gem monster's ear canal and trying to wedge it away with her feet. "If you can take one yourself, yes!"

Amethyst scooted closer when Pearl's gem glowed and the handle began to materialise. Amethyst grabbed it and pulled out the long weapon between skull smashes.

It felt like a breath of air in her hand, and its energy was light and clear instead of her own wild and loose whip. It felt like she was holding a part of Pearl, the one she knew for her grace.

Amethyst crawled up to the back of the turtle's neck. The monster bucked and shook Pearl like a ragdoll. The purple gem raised the foreign weapon, and stabbed it into the leather-textured skin.

The turtle groaned, and with its modified legs it reared up and shook both Amethyst and Pearl into the waterline. The spear stuck out of its neck, but hadn't gone deep enough to cause real damage.

"Now would be a good time for you to kick some ass, P!" Amethyst huffed.

"We could fuse," Pearl offered.

Such a statement was so far out of left field Amethyst gaped at her. " _Now_ of all times you consider forming Opal?!" She yelled, waving her arms.

The gem monster screeched and lumbered towards them.

Amethyst and Pearl dived in opposite directions to escape the charge. Its head rammed into the surf. Wet sand exploded in all directions.

"Actually that sounds like a good idea!" Amethyst shouted, half drenched and bruised.

Pearl pirouetted immediately, sand flying under her dancing flats as she spun and turned, leaping away from the gem monster and towards Amethyst. The purple gem stamped her feet and slunk across the sand to meet halfway. Both gems were already shining as their movements matched a beat only they could hear, as they opened up to being intermingled, an amalgam, synchronised: They met, and Pearl twirled, Amethyst bounced, and their forms joined.

Opal rose in their place, both parts of her whole thinking in perfect time. She was neither Amethyst nor Pearl. Opal cartwheeled away from the turtle and its jaws clamped on air that had been her legs only a precious second earlier.

In such a vulnerable state, even though she tried to avoid it anyway, Amethyst could feel everything in Pearl's head. She could feel the inherent darkness in her gem like a new emotion, dark and sticky and warm and heavy in her gut, and though the fusion held, Opal wobbled. The part of her that felt like Amethyst was focussing too much on herself, while Pearl's sort of sensibilities were focussed like a laser on taking out the gem monster. Opal found her focus, drew her bow, and an arrow of light notched itself in. The gem monster opened its mouth to screech and bite, and Opal loosed the arrow down its throat.

A series of explosions sounded within the gem monster, and it stamped its feet and roared, body disintegrating into smoke.

There was a rush of savage euphoria from the part of Opal that came from Pearl, and the fusion grew unsteady when Amethyst registered the heady bloodlust, of unstoppable power and cloying, seductive darkness. Pearl was focusing less on Amethyst's sync and more on the death of the gem monster and Opal was thus torn, because nothing could stop her, nothing could touch her, she was Opal and she was a Goddess –

The strain of focussing on the external and the internal broke the fusion, and Amethyst and Pearl fell onto soft sand. Pearl reached over and collected the jade sphere, sending it away.

Amethyst, suddenly, laughed. "Oh man, P, you feel like that all the time now?"

Pearl was now on her feet, weight in contraposto, hands crossed over her chest. "Yes, Amethyst. Welcome to the convoluted interior of my head."

"That was..." Amethyst was blown away by the sheer confidence, the rush of power. It reminded her of Sugilite. "Do you want to keep hunting gem monsters with me?" Amethyst asked giddily. She could finally see what Pearl liked about the corruption and, boy, it was _beautiful_.

Pearl considered this. "Yes, I would. I think I'd like an outfit change first," she said, pondering other things she'd seen in the clothes store.

"Come on, P," Amethyst continued so inexplicably cheerily, a grin plastered on her face, “Hurry up! Let’s go get some clothes then!”

Pearl cracked a smile despite herself. "Fine, Amethyst, let's go," she laughed, eyes dark, letting herself be pulled along the beach.

 

Pearl hefted the aluminium baseball bat in one hand.

"What're you picking that up for, P?" Amethyst asked, leaning on a display of basketballs. Ensconced in a sports store, the roller door had stood no chance against two sharp weapons. Funny that Pearl should gravitate to this blunt thing, for someone so reliant on precision.

"I like it," Pearl said, swinging it loosely through the air with the kind of one-handed hold that any referee would die of shock trying to correct.

"What are you gonna do, smash things with it?" Amethyst scoffed. She picked up a basketball and lobbed it into a shelf covered in pool toys. Nearly a whole row fell off with a great crash.

Hours ago in a B-grade clothes store, Amethyst had forced a blue men's t shirt emblazoned with a dead smiley face upon Pearl. Pearl had also made the mistake of scrutinising some leather jackets, so now she had one of those too, regardless of anything she had wanted in the first place. Amethyst stayed in her own outfit despite all the fuss over Pearl.

"Damn straight I'll smash things," Pearl growled, lifting the bat and swinging it into the front display with all the wiry strength in her lithe body.

The glass shattered with a crack that split the air. Pearl whooped, and took the head clean off a mannequin sporting elite swimwear with a backhanded impact.

Amethyst gaped at her, heart fluttering, achingly tremulous respect blossoming inside her.  

Pearl's wicked grin was back. She looked at Amethyst like nothing else could hold her attention, and Amethyst felt very precious and very much like prey.

"Come with me, Amethyst?" Pearl asked, one hand gripping the bat like she would a sword: like it was an extension of her arm. Her shoes crunched on glass.

Amethyst stared. Here was a fallen angel, offering her companionship if nothing else in this godforsaken town.

What else was there to lose?

"You got it, P," Amethyst said, all smooth and shaded, offering a bright shard of her soul to this valkyrie with alabaster skin and a heart that burned like liquid nitrogen.

 

Amethyst was a creature of vengeance, Pearl observed.

She was a terror of battle fury and quick thinking. She manipulated the environment itself as a weapon all its own. She had the guile of a puma and the skill to match: she was a hunter in her own right, a terror to behold.

Out of battle, Amethyst was Pearl's reprieve from boredom. She made light of the simplest things. Where Pearl was once irritated by such banter, she began to accept it as par for the course, even appreciate it.

They went to the house in down time. Pearl was a staunch advocate of keeping the place clean. Amethyst spent a day taking all her goods from her hidey hole in the arcade and dumping it in the master bedroom. Pearl sorted it into neat stacks on one side of the room, and Amethyst said her thanks by kicking half of it over. Amethyst made the bed one day as a boon for Pearl, doing her best to neaten the duvet and fluff the pillows. Pearl went back and did it anyway. There wasn't a crumple in the sheets, not a crease in the coverlet, and she left a note in elegant cursive script in the centre telling Amethyst to "try harder". Amethyst ripped it up and brewed Pearl a cup of cold, bitter tea with the note and far too many tea leaves.

Pearl cornered Amethyst in the kitchen one overcast morning. "What is your problem, Amethyst?" She asked, towering over the purple gem.

"I could ask you the same thing!" Amethyst huffed, unwilling to back down from Pearl, who was way too close. Pearl's breathing, a habit she had picked up with the corruption, was loud in her ears.

"You are undermining my every attempt to make this place liveable. You, with your mess, your disorganisation...!" Pearl exclaimed. Everything about Amethyst irritated her; her stubbornness, her bright eyes, her resilience. Her short stature coiled tight and ready to fire. “Like you hadn’t done it already, but now I have to _live_ with you!”

"You can talk, Pearl. I'm trying to cope too! You aren't the only one who's got _problems_! At least you know what it's like to be a monster, now," Amethyst snarled, right in Pearl's face, close enough she could bite her _fucking_ nose off.

Pearl faltered. She steeled herself. The snark came back full force. "You, trying to cope? How, Amethyst? By making trouble for me?"

"By trying to forget that Steven's gone!" Amethyst shouted, shoving Pearl away. Pearl stumbled into the counter, and a stack of clean tupperware fell to the floor.

The look on Pearl's face was murderous like molten iron. "And you assume I don't miss him?"

“Now that _Rose_ is even _more_ gone than she was before!” Amethyst howled, drawing one shining neon bright whip and lashing at Pearl. It clipped her in the shoulder as she dived for the wall to the side and it sliced the kitchen counter, breaking a whole shelf of plates and dishes with a mighty crash.

The only good idea from here was a mutual apology. Alas, this was Pearl and Amethyst. Pearl drew the bat and swung for the purple gem. Amethyst dived, and the bat made a sizeable hole in the gyprock where her head was.

"Don't pin everything I do on Rose," Pearl growled as she yanked the bat out, a feral fire in her eyes.

Amethyst was unperturbed, a similar glare hot on her face. Pearl had nothing on her. Pearl couldn't out-monster her. Amethyst _was_ a god damned monster. "I can pin enough of it on Rose," she spat.

Pearl flickered, backed down. She couldn't win here. Amethyst had struck a hot nerve. Amethyst's eyes lost none of their intensity as she slinked out of the kitchen to the reprieve of the impeccably kept master bedroom.

 

Monster hunting was more monotonous than Pearl would dare admit. Some days she would come back to the house smelling like blood, and Amethyst would ask where she went. Pearl would not answer.

Amethyst found videos in a cabinet under the TV. Pearl made a generator out of scraps from two and a half cars, and wired it to the mains. They watched old movies together, sometimes apart on the couch, sometimes curled up together, arms around torsos and heads under chins.

Some days Pearl came home smelling like human cigarettes. It clung to her like an aura. Amethyst pretended to fall asleep on top of her while they were watching Con Air for the fifth time. Her ear was pressed on Pearl's flat chest, and she could hear air filtering in and out of her hologram body.

It was like the old days, she thought, before Greg.

"You wanna clean that jacket or something?" Amethyst asked once. The smell, while not unpleasant, still jarred her. Pearl should smell clean and crisp.

"Not really." Pearl said, a neat vocalisation, dismissing the notion like she wouldn't consider it had Amethyst not voiced it. "It's not that bad."

Amethyst quirked her lips, squinted up at the slender warrior. "I kinda like this new Pearl."

Pearl's eyes left the screen, finding Amethyst far more interesting. "Did I brush off on you through Opal?" She mused, combing her fingers through Amethyst's hair and scratching her scalp.

Amethyst practically purred, film forgotten. "If you did, I probably didn't have to change much anyway..."

Pearl hummed absently, pressing her lips to Amethyst's hair. She felt the little feline shift closer, and pulled her hair so her head tilted back and she could kiss her forehead. Amethyst hissed and her fingers twitched, but she stayed close.

"What was that for, P?" Amethyst asked. Her scalp tingled.

"Nothing you need to worry about, Amethyst."

"Uh, I think it is," Amethyst pressed, and when she got up on her knees and stared Pearl in the eye the other gem's hand stayed in her hair. Pearl used the leverage to pull her closer.

"Do you want to worry about it? Because for your peace of mind I think you don't," Pearl said, and her breath smelled like earth blood.

Amethyst scoffed. "What are you now, a vampire? Because I don't have blood."

Apprehension flickered in Pearl's eyes. "I have this... Lust, for battle now. It's always there, hovering, and blood helps. Killing helps."

Amethyst watched her shut her eyes and shiver. She could feel Pearl's hand clench into a fist in her hair, and she pulled away. "Well, go and kill more gem monsters!" She said, without the conviction she usually brandished.

Pearl forcefully yanked her forwards again. "It's not enough, Amethyst!" She hissed.

Amethyst flinched from her breath and fury. "What am I supposed to do, fight you?"

"Please, yes!" Pearl exclaimed. "Just fight me! Fight me right now!"

There was a terrible fury in her eyes that unnerved Amethyst, and she turned off the TV. "Okay Pearl," she said, pacifying the corrupted Gem, "Just stay calm. Let's take this outside."

Pearl unfolded herself off the couch and bodily carried Amethyst away.

"Put me down, Pearl! Put me down!" Amethyst complained at the unexpected movement, squirming and shoving with futile panic as Pearl walked out of the house, across the minimal front yard, and onto the street.

Pearl dropped the stout gem soundly onto the asphalt and stalked away.

"I thought you said you wanted to fight?" Amethyst called after her, indignant at the treatment.

Pearl turned and drew the aluminium bat. "En garde!" She cried, taking a perfect fencing stance but for the bastardised weapon.

Amethyst drew her whip without saying anything at all. This was a time she'd need to be beyond cautious. There was no knowing if Pearl would relent, or even let her live. No doubt Pearl had carried her away when she needed to reform last time, but now...

Amethyst struck for the bat, using all her precision behind the move, because if she could take that thing away she could force Pearl to revert to her spears. Pearl stepped nimbly out of the way and sprinted in with a swing that would club Amethyst down.

Amethyst just barely dodged the bat. It clipped her shoulder. Amethyst countered with a quick hit on Pearl's back with the pommel of her whip, and Pearl hissed, spun, and punched Amethyst in the jaw, one-fist-two-bat, and so taken off guard was the purple gem that a kick to the chest bowled her clean off her feet. Amethyst rolled aside, dizzy, and with a flash of light and a guttural battle cry the now-Purple Puma punched back.

He caught Pearl in the sternum, and she reeled, braced, and pounded the bat into his knees with the speed she would strike with a sword, hammered his side, half-striking the vibrant gem on his chest—

Amethyst roared, curling in on herself and swinging blindly for Pearl. Punching. Missing more than caught. Getting hit. Glancing one off Pearl's forehead, now they were both damaged, glitching and sparking and exchanging blow for blow and shapeshift for screeching return to the feathered avian monster.

Pearl slashed at Amethyst and Amethyst countered, over and over. Precious seconds changed to minutes. Minutes dragged on. Scales and feathers and hacked locks of mauve hair decorated the ground. Blow for brutal blow landed heavily in the otherwise silent street. 

It was a good hour before the corrupted Pearl simply collapsed, covered in bruises and lacerations, feathers broken and bent and askew. She made a pitiful whine and stretched her neck trying to shuffle back to Amethyst.

Amethyst wasn't faring much better. Her body hung hunched and tired like all her energy had been sucked clean out of her, and she too was cut in places, some deeper than others. She dropped the whip to her feet and sank to her knees next to Pearl's head. Her knees scraped on the asphalt. She cradled Pearl's head in her arms, shaking from fatigue.

The great beak-like jaw opened, and a cascading, clicking sound spilled out. Amethyst shushed her, brushing her fingers across her gem, pale fractures spidering across its surface.

"Snap out of it, Pearl," Amethyst breathed wearily.

The monster blinked, and shuddered. When it lit up bright Amethyst was forced to shut her eyes. Even before the light faded, she felt arms wrap around her. Shaking arms. Slender arms holding her close and pulling her to a solid body whose irregular breaths she could feel in her ear, on her neck. Amethyst hugged Pearl back with strong arms, secure arms that missed her, god she missed Pearl.

"Amethyst," Pearl said softly.

"Yeah?" Amethyst said.

A tired sigh. "Thank you."

Amethyst pulled away and held her shoulders. "Hey, don't look at me, I'd love to beat you up," she teased.

Pearl's dark, tired eyes narrowed. "Wipe that grin off your face."

"Nah," Amethyst said with a chuckle, "I like it."

The wind blew slow and lonely down the street. Pearl's hands drifted to Amethyst's waist. Amethyst threaded her hands into Pearl's hair.

They kissed, alone together in a town of monsters.

 

"We should really go to Rose's fountain," Amethyst said one day.

Pearl inhaled deeply of the cigarette between her fingertips, and the puff of smoke she blew was whisked away by the wind. "The closest warp pad is broken. Unless you'd rather risk going to the temple, we can't do much."

They were standing together on the front porch. The sun was setting, and so were their hopes. Both gems were glitching, and running out of options.

"We could just keep going til we died," Amethyst offered.

Pearl turned to her. "That's terrible."

Amethyst shrugged as Pearl flicked a little ash away. "Unless you want to walk there. Where is it? Norway or something?"

"I don't plan to run across the ocean," Pearl snapped.

"Duh!" Amethyst said, gesturing widely. "But are you really willing to just sit here until we glitch out or mutate?"

Pearl watched her flicker blue right before her eyes. She sighed. "We could risk going to the temple. Going through Steven's room while praying that Garnet isn't around. What would she think of us now?"

Amethyst shrugged. "Probably bubble us."

Pearl mashed the butt of her cigarette on the railing, and dropped it in the ashtray on the cheap table that decorated the front porch. "And that's why we can't go back."

Of course Amethyst thought this sounded incredibly defeatist coming from the gem whose salient skill was strategy. But, if she had considered the options...

Amethyst shuffled closer and hugged Pearl. Feeling her close. Breathing in the scent of her shirt. "Can I just... Stay with you?"

Pearl absently combed Amethyst's hair with her fingers. "You want that?"

A smile tugged at Amethyst's lips and she looked away. Emotions were overrated, she thought. "Yeah. You wanna watch another movie?"

Pearl grinned, fastening her hand in the mop of mauve hair. "Yeah," she growled.

 

Shitty romcoms seemed to be the specialty of the old house owners. The Gems were being exhausted faster than the supply of dusty DVDs. Amethyst kept badgering Pearl with questions and lewd statements even while Pearl all but pretended to ignore her.

"That guy needs a haircut," she observed offhandedly. "How long do you think it'd take him to get that girl off?"

"He wouldn't be able to," Pearl said flatly. The man onscreen, sub-par in attractiveness with a striking resemblance to Adam Sandler, looked heartbroken right on cue. "I bet I could," Pearl added in an undertone.

Amethyst nudged the arm Pearl had wrapped intimately around her shoulders, and waggled her eyebrows. "I bet you could too."

Pearl pretended to stare at the screen, but she ghosted her fingertips up and down Amethyst's arm.

The purple gem shivered. "I bet I could get you off three times in the time it took - wait-!" She exclaimed, backtracking rapidly as Pearl blinked at her, "I didn't mean that! I didn't mean that," she snapped defensively, crossing her arms and blushing a vivid shade of violet from the surprise more than embarrassment.

"What an astounding Freudian slip," Pearl said dryly. "As opposed to 'get her off'?" She teased.

Amethyst scowled. "So what? It doesn't matter."

Pearl didn't reply. Silence stretched as each Gem contemplated the other's subtext. Amethyst flickered bright blue in the dark room, and the TV, shades of human skin, white, and flowers. Pearl's hand gripped Amethyst's arm. Amethyst's shoulders shook imperceptibly.

"What are we gonna do, P?" Amethyst whispered.

There was a pause. Pearl reached for the remote and turned off the TV, shifting so she faced Amethyst. She cupped the purple Gem's face in her hands in the new silence.

"I don't know, Amethyst," Pearl admitted quietly. The waves crashed in the far distance, barely a whisper.

Amethyst inhaled shakily. There was that smell again, tar smoke and leather over crisp air.

Pearl knew this look on Amethyst’s face. It was a vulnerable side she’d barely ever gotten the chance to see. She combed her fingers through Amethyst’s hair and revelled in the uncoiling tension that sloughed off her shoulders.

She could do this. She could keep them together.

She could almost be a different sort of knight again.

Pearl pulled Amethyst into a hug, and for all the indifferent world about them they’d be fine, she thought, as long as they stuck together for the rest of their miserable lives.


End file.
